General Chat

I passed my 11 plus in Mevagissey, Cornwall - the 6th Primary school I had attended - and in those days, each school had it's own (different) curriculum!
Mind you, It was never 'important' to me - just another test.

It was a toss-up between me and Eric, so we had to have an interview.
I had to read a passage from a book about a parliament of Seagulls, then I was asked questions about it.
One was 'What was a Parliament?' - my answer - 'A gathering of people, or in this case, seagulls'.
'What happens in a Parliament?' Well, thinking of the seagulls, my answer was 'A lot of noise' - I didn't understand why they laughed!
Eric must have been awful! :-D
When he found out I'd got the place - and not him - he tried to kick me, and spat at me.

Well, in the summer holidays, we moved to the New Forest.
My mother desperately tried to get me into one of the local Secondary Schools because 'The education in Cornwall isn't as good as it is here'. :-S

I ended up going to a Grammar School 20 miles away.
We only had one or two 'ancient' teachers, Miss Millington (English) and Mr Goodyear (Music) - oh and Mr Brocklebank - fairly old, but mainly mad.
He was sacked/taken away the first term we were there, as he created a poisonous gas, and refused to let us out of the classroom. :-S

Exactly, but they thought we were having some marvellous experience that they weren't.

Incidentally, have you ever tried looking up any of those truly ancient women who taught you on Ancestry? I found that one of those old souls was 35 when she was teaching me.

I went to a girl's grammar - lovely but creaky old building, crappy heating and a set of teachers from the pre-war, maiden aunt days, ancient books and attitudes.

We went to the social club on Sunday morning for a radio quiz, the only time we visit on a Sunday, and I was chatting to a woman who had moved back to Chichester. She was of a similar age to myself and we were discussing where we went to school.

She had been at the secondary and different primaries she said and then she asked me if I had been to the same secondary. Well,no, I went to the grammar.

There was the usual tiny gear change in the conversation at that.

Even after fifty odd years there is still this strange attitude to us like we had something they didn't and look down on them and are an odd breed apart. I have a cousin who has never forgiven me and likes to tell me, on the odd occasion we ever meet, how her sister had an interview but was rejected because their dad worked on a farm.People routinely tell me they could have gone there but their parents could not afford to send them.

Those who were in the secondary schools may well have treated us as aliens when we were at school, it was territorial if nothing else but that was much of a lifetime ago. I am a dustman's daughter who has not progressed much further myself when many of them have so why do people still think all grammar school pupils are stuck up when we were more like St Trinians than they were?